I heard this a few times last night. Ya ya, Curry was just given respect, but I'm positive I heard at least two media members say it before the game as well... Really? three Hall of Famer players for the Spurs? OK, Duncan is easily one of the greatest players of all time and will be a 1st ballot guy. I assume the other two are Parker and Manu...

Parker still needs some years, IMO. He hasn't done much individually to get there.

Elite defensive numbers, high true shooting percentage sustained with an average usage of 25 when on the floor. He may not have the volume or counting stats to make the hall of fame, and that's a good enough argument to keep him out, but he is definitely a hall of fame quality player and it wouldn't be a travesty if he didn't make it, but it wouldn't be bad if he did.

I agree and well said Blackfoot. Ginobili may not have the volume, but seeing how he plays and the impact he has had his entire career, he is a top 15 player of his era. Stats and numbers don't show it, but effectiveness does.

This is gonna be fun. Top 15, you say? Well, his era has been from 2002-2013. That's the past 11 years and counting. I can name you 20 players better than Ginobli in that span.

(And, first of all, lemmie preface this by saying that I do not view TS% as the ultimate barometer. IMHO, Artis Gilmore is not the greatest NBA player of all-time. Tyson Chandler isn't the best current center because he tops the active TS% list. Nor do I believe that Reggie Miller was a better scorer than Michael Jordan. So Ginobli's elite TS% is nice... but it's not a trump card to me.)

And so on and so on. We'd get dicey at around Carlos Boozer; cause Booz starts and puts up similarly efficient numbers while Ginobli doesn't. Yes, I would take 6 years of Durant over 11 years of Ginobli. Manu Ginobli is a career bench player. He plays against second units in every first half. Yes, he closes games. Yes, he's a good player. But his efficiency numbers are inflated. Bench units do not defend as well as starting units typically do. Our team is an exception. Ginobli plays the bench units and gets a lot of open love for playing next to Tim Duncan. I cringe whenever they make him an all-star; I don't even believe he's THAT good. But Hall of Fame??

If you put Manu Ginobli in the Hall of Fame, then by definition you MUST put Bill Cartwright in there too. He shot a similar TS% and helped the greatest player of his era to a couple titles, too. It's the same situation, only Cartwright started and Ginobli played bench scrubs. Is Bill Cartwright a Hall of Famer?!?

He's better than Battier, Arenas, Iggy, Brand, Artest, Webber, Wallace, and Williams on that list. I am not going through that whole list because I don't think Manu is top 15 caliber of all time so it doesn't bug me much.

TS percentage needs to be taken with context as in usage, minutes. Chandler is an elite center though. It's why he always has the highest offensive synergy in the league. It's why the Knicks are third in scoring. They are much worse offensively without him in.

The bench argument is tired, honestly. Sixth men don't show a drop in production when they start. They never play against a whole bench. A team always has starters out and never a full bench and he plays in the closing line up.

Manu scored more efficiently (probably negligible) with a higher usage rate and an assist rate 3.5 times higher than Bill's. He has a higher career win share total in four less seasons, and his career differential is +15 while Bill's was only +5.

Reggie was a better scorer than Jordan, just like Durant is better at scoring than Lebron. But Jordan does every single thing ten times better than everyone else. He's probably the greatest ever at defending his position. And offensively he was probably better because he turned it over less with a usage rate at 33 while Reggie's was at 21. But just at scoring, Reggie was better.

My stance will probably stay, hall of fame level player, but probably won't get in because of volume that's needed to get in.

That Reggie-Michael remark is exactly why I say TS% favors 3-point shooters. Jordan was a career 30 PPG player on 49% from the field. Miller was an 18 PPG guy on 47%, but he shot a ton of 3's which jacked up his TS%. That isn't even a debate to me, BF, and I know we won't agree on it, but the results speak for themselves.

I recall you saying that 60 three's equals 80 dunks. But that's a huge inflation of reality. 2 three's equal 3 dunks. And no team in the league makes 2 three's for every 3 2-pointes the other team has. Teams make roughly 1 three for every 2 regular baskets. That's 4 points to 3 points. Let's disregard free-throws (which, obviously, are a bonus for 2-point field goals hundreds of times over, compared to the minute number of fouls teams give behind the 3-point line). Simply discussing field goals, let's crunch some numbers. I did my research here:

Last year, the total number of three-pointers out of all field goals made was 19.4%. Which means teams score 4 times as many 2-pointers as they do three-pointers. The numbers I calculated are as follows:

Total points from two's last year: 151,886Total points from three's last year: 54,954

Which means that three's comprised 36.2% of all points scored. 63.8% of all points scored on field goals came from inside the 3-point arc. Two's went in more than half of the time, whereas three's sat at 37%.

What this means to me is that three-pointers are not nearly as valuable as two-pointers. Yes, you get more points on a single shot when the ball goes in, but the ball goes in nearly 15% more often when you shoot closer. You get more free throws when you shoot closer. Inside scorers, slashers, post-players... they all have a place in the game. In Golden State, we are spoiled because we have arguably the 2 best three-point shooters in the entire game of basketball. But that should not cloud us to the fact that 2-pointers contribute far more points than 3-pointers do. So the whole TS% argument, the whole concept that three-point shooters are more valuable than slashers... I just disagree with it.

You always shoot for efficiency, but volume is a very real variable that comes into play in the game of basketball. And when volume is taken into account, 2-pointers trump three pointers to the tune of 80.6% of all field goals made, compared to 19.4% of the three-pointers that contribute to all made field goals. 80% of all made field goals, and 64% of all points scored on field goals, come from inside the arc.

The 60 three's equals 80 dunks analogy was misleading. Teams NEVER made 2 three's for every 3 two's. Not even close.

Was Reggie a better three-point shooter than Jordan? Unquestionably.Did Reggie have a higher TS%? Absolutely.Was he a better scorer than Michael Jeffrey Jordan? Not even close.

Likewise, Manu Ginobli is not a hall-of-fame player because of VOLUME. Was he efficient? Did he average an elite TS%? No question. But Manu Ginobli is a career 14 point per game player. And as I used to say regarding Monta Ellis, if every NBA player could average 20 points per game, they would. It's a bar that scorers attempt to get to and not everybody is capable of it. Moreover, it's been proven that the more three's a player shoots, the less likely they are to go in; just like all shots. The more you shoot, the less efficient you'll be. So players that hit the 20 point per game mark are valuable... because no coach would keep a player in the game if they were jacking up 20 points on less than 40% shooting. A guy scoring 20 points on 45%, 35% for three, is more valuable than a guy scoring 14 points on 48%, 40% for three. Why? Because Player A is shooting a lot more while maintaining a respectable percentage. Player B is more efficient because the lack of volume means he has less of a chance to ding up his percentages.

Remember Ike Diogu? He put up elite TS% numbers his first couple years for us. Everybody thought he'd be a star if he just carved out a role and earned some minutes. But Ike's efficiency dried up with extra minutes. It's a lot easier to sink 4-of-5 shots than it is to hit 16-of-20.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I find that we typically have pretty similar viewpoints as far as talent, but our splitting point is truly the TS%... which I find valuable, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's the be-all, end-all stat. I don't think a be-all, end-all stat exists... but I think the closest thing to it is PER. The Reggie-vs-Jordan thing is a classic example of my problem with TS%. Efficiency takes nothing of volume into consideration when doling out accolades; it simply uses volume as a secondary characteristic. To me, volume is huge. The more one shoots, the less efficient they'll be. Look at Andrew Bogut. He figured out he couldn't score like he used to, so he quit calling for the ball and is living on put-backs and dunks and look at how well he's fitting in now. Concurrently, a player like David Lee can maintain a good shooting percentage while taking four times as many shots as Bogut, so even though their field goal percentages can be similar, Lee is obviously a better scorer because he can maintain a good percentage with more attempts.

I got a serious soft spot for Webber. He was the rookie in my first real season following the Warriors (I was 7 or 8 years old). That dude used to franchise my fantasy teams back when we had to keep track of stats with a newspaper and box scores haha. Webber is one of the most versatile, complete basketball players of all-time. He was a 6'10" total package; he could score inside and outside, passed like a point guard, rebounded extremely well, blocked shots, stole the ball, played a ton of minutes.

Ginobli couldn't hold a candle to those numbers. And Webber was the main cog in a team that went to the Western Conference Finals. Ginobli has never been the main man on a team, certainly never dragged a team to the WCF himself, and could NEVER put up an all-around season like that.

Ginobli probably would have had better numbers if he was the number one option. A breakout similar to Harden now. Ginobli takes up 1/4 of the possessions when he is on the floor. He's not shooting in a controlled way where it's easy to get good efficient numbers. He creates his offense and he is does it often. So it's more certainly not from lack of using him a lot. And Manu could have easily have average 20+ a game on a different team if he left the Spurs. It's not a question.

Jordan vs. Reggie scoring wise (only shots) is interesting. Because Reggie produced more points per possession, but he also used a lot less possessions. Jordan's usage rate was sky ****ing high. I am sure if Jordan used the same amount of possessions he could have been just as efficient on offense if not more so.

But how about a game of one-on-one? Yes, Jordan has the superior defense... but you don't think the surplus of scoring methods he featured (fadeaway, face-up dribble, slashing, elevating and contorting) would be able to best Miller's spot-up shooting?

I like Reggie a lot. I just think Jordan is a superior overall scorer. Not shooter, but scorer... ala Kobe versus Ray Allen. I know Ray has a better TS%, but Kobe can literally score in EVERY imaginable way, whereas Ray doesn't have all the weapons Kobe has.

"Fear the man who who practiced the same kick 10,000 times over the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks." Someone Famous

Anyways, I think adjusting for usage again helps Kobe here over Allen. Than again, there is always the argument the high usage rate is a knock on Kobe. And I think it helps Jordan a hell of a lot more over Reggie.

But he has a high usage rate in less than 28 minutes a game with only half of his career contests in the starting lineup.

He's being used because he's the main weapon on the B-Team. Hall-of-Famers don't have career-high seasons of only 31 minutes per game. Again, the volume issue comes into play. "If he was good enough to start, he would." "If he was good enough to play more minutes, he would." Why do the Spurs only play him 27 minutes a night if he's a Hall-of-Fame player? Wouldn't they wanna include that guy as often as possible?

Harden was "just a bench player" on the Thunder too. It's just too create mismatches or because the bench lacks a quality scorer when the starters are out. But without a doubt Manu would have been great as a starter on a team. He plays on the closing line up and his career efficiency in the closing line up is the same as his career.

Pop hurts his hall of fame chance because he's really smart about all of his players minutes. Spurs never go full bore in the regular season.

Sorry, I didn't read all the above posts but I saw that Ginobili was mentioned as a Hall of Famer. NO FUNKING WAY. Ginobili is a quality player. But the HOF is only for the cream of the crop. The elite players. The very best that have played the game. MVP's. Guys that are perennial All stars. Not a 6th man. Everyone doesn't win a prize.